Feminist and anti-racist legal scholars argued that the First Amendment should not safeguard language that inflicted emotional injury through racist or sexist stigmatization. One scholar, Mari J. Matsuda, was particularly insistent that college students not be subjected to “the violence of the word” because many of them “are away from home for the first time and at a vulnerable stage of psychological development.” If they’re targeted and the university does nothing to help them, they will be “left to their own resources in coping with the damage wrought.” That might have, she wrote, “lifelong repercussions.”

Isn't that how life's supposed to work, though? Aren't we supposed to take things we see and hear, feel somehow, and use them to shape our personal worldview? If you hear something that you find offensive for whatever reason, you, as a discerning human being, can label it as something you disagree with and strive to conduct yourself by your own standards or morals or whatever you want to call them. Just like with allergies or your immune system, the more you are exposed to conflicting ideas, the more you can protect your sensibilities from them, but, more importantly, you can use them to solidify your own ideas. By "protecting" people from being offended, universities and educators are doing the exact opposite of their jobs (these are college kids, for God's sake; they're supposed to be learning about the world, not being protected from everything outside their pillows, cookies, and Play-Doh). Life is struggle, and if these people aren't allowed to experience discomfort and confrontation, how can they hope to survive in the real world?